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Everything you didn’t want to know about bedbugs

Fri., Aug. 6, 2010

What do they look like?

At maturity, they’re the size of an apple seed, oval in shape and darkish red (from sucking on your blood). They will feed on mammals or birds, but prefer humans. Newly hatched, they’re harder to see: translucent, like an uncooked grain of rice. Adult bedbugs can live for a year without feeding, which makes getting rid of them even more difficult. An infestation can also be recognized through blood spots on your mattress, shells and fecal matter.

Bedbugs are tiny pests to pack such a big emotional wallop on their victims. Daniel Mackie, of Greenleaf Pest Control, placed a bedbug next to an apple seed to show their relative size. (CARLOS OSORIO / TORONTO STAR)

How fast do they reproduce?

A female can lay 10 eggs a day, some 200 to 500 eggs in her lifespan. Eggs hatch in 10 days, and new bugs must eat within two days. An infestation of 40 bugs can grow to more than 6,000 in six months if not dealt with.

How do they travel? How far can they go?

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Bedbugs are considered the most difficult urban pest to get rid of. They’re most active at night, attracted to a warm body and exhaled carbon dioxide. Although an infestation usually begins in a mattress and bed frame, it can quickly spread.

In severe infestations, bedbugs can be found everywhere, including baseboards, drawers, tables, floor boards, wall cracks, electrical sockets, and inside appliances and other belongings.

There are also increased reports of bugs travelling on clothes and bags, and in severe infestations on building exteriors. They can hide in the slot of a screw, the seam of a briefcase, secondhand furniture and the vent of a laptop. You can get them by simply sitting in an infested spot, such as a cloth seat in the subway, a movie theatre or hotel.

Are they harmful?

Typically, the first sign of bedbugs is bites, bumps or a rash on the upper torso, neck, arms, or around the face. While the bites are itchy, and can cause allergic reactions in some, they don’t necessarily require medical treatment. About 70 per cent of people don’t react to bites at all, making it even more difficult to determine if they are crawling in your bed.

Several factors have contributed: increased travel, less-effective pesticides, closer dwelling units and more crowded cities. But experts are still trying to figure out why they managed to come back so fast.

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